A DISCOURSE 



COMMEMORATIVE OF THE 



HON. GEORGE PERKINS MARSH, LL.D., 




Delivered Before the Faculty and Students of 

Dartmouth College, 

JUNE S, 1883, 

And Repeated Before the Trustees, Faculty and 
Students of the University of Vermont, 



JUNE 28, 1883, 



BY 



SAMUEL OILMAN BROWN, D. D., LL.D. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 










BURLINGTON : 

FREE PRESS ASSOCIATION. 

1883. 



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• 



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m 



A D I SCOURSE 



COMMEMORATIVE OF THE 



HON. GEORGE PERKINS MARSH, LL.D. 



BY 



SAMUEL OILMAN BROWN, D. D., LL.D. 



PRELIMINARY NOTE. 



It has been thought proper to print the following discourse 
as it was originally prepared. In delivering it in Burlington, a 
few pages were omitted, as not being appropriate to the place. 





DISCOURSE. 






It is a grateful service for which we have met to-day, to 
pay our sincere tribute to the memory of a distinguished cit- 
izen, to gather up a few of the lessons of a noble life, to 
commemorate one eminent in the councils of the nation and 
still more eminent in letters, who left the halls of Dartmouth, 
a faithful and well-deserving son, sixty-three years ago, and 
who has given proof everywhere and always, how thoroughly 
he possessed the spirit of a scholar, how profoundly loyal he 
was to every claim of patriotism and truth, of honor and hu- 
manity. 

To a community of scholars, the name of George Perkins 
Marsh needs no introduction. He was born in the beautiful 
village of Woodstock, Vt., on the 15th of March, 1801, of an 
honorable parentage, of a family distinguished for cultiva- 
tion, unswerving rectitude and eminent intellectual ability. 
His father, the Hon. Charles Marsh, a Puritan in morals and 
theology,— kindred.in blood with that unsurpassed New Eng- j 
land lawyer, Jeremiah Mason, — was among the earlier resi- 
dents of the town, and was eminently fitted by character and 
attainments to shape the early life of a community in the 
forms of intelligence and virtue, laying the foundations so 
broad and so deep, that the whole structure of social and 
civil. life might evermore be built thereon without fear. Dur- 
ing a long career of eminent professional service, he proved 
himself one of the commanding minds of the State.* 



•See Appendix, Note I. 



A fe 






The mother of George P. Marsh was a lady of unusual 
refinement and inbred courtesy, who threw the grace of a 
beautiful and affectionate spirit over the more rugged and 
unyielding strength of her husband, while both were the 
constant and firm supporters of those domestic and social 
virtues, to which more than to any thing else, a young and 
growing community will ever owe its good repute and its 
abiding prosperity. 

It is easy, then, to conjecture some of the general influ- 
ences, moral and intellectual, by which that young life was 
surrounded. The boy must have been constantly subject- 
ed to the unconscious discipline of severe and exact meth- 
ods, of sound thinking and sincere acting, of the approving 
word for everything good and beneficent, and the emphatic 
censure of the tortuous and crafty and wicked. There were 
many questions of public interest, political and moral, which 
must often have been discussed in his hearing. Nowhere 
in the State would he have been made to feel more habit- 
ually and constantly the value of accurate thinking and thor- 
ough knowledge, of the wisdom of strict integrity, of the in- 
flexible demands of righteousness. Nowhere would he more 
often have felt the power of the English language to express 
without circumlocution the thorough convictions of honest 
minds ; and nowhere could he have seen more constantly the 
power of an affectionate and gentle nature to refine and ele- 
vate, to dignify and bless a Christian household. Breathing 
this atmosphere of truth and honor, of a somewhat rigid 
regard for the ancient principles of New England life, of self- 
respect and personal dignity, of refinement and generous 
culture, he grew to the independence of incipient manhood. 

There were other potent influences, too, of which we 
might speak, which could not exist without a modifying 
effect upon his tastes and habits. It is impossible to say 
how much may be ascribed to the powers of physical nature 
steadily working upon a sensitive mind ; but certain it is 
that the mind uses the materials of the outer world for its 







own comfort and delight. The bold mountain, the winding 
road through the forest, the river, tumultuous or placid, 
the distant slopes, the picturesque outline of the horizon,' 
become, as it were, actual possessions of the soul, are mater- 
ials of its thought over which it broods till there come forth 
new creations of utility and beauty. And I have asked my- 
self, how much that spot of exquisite loveliness where his 
eyes first saw the light-as charming almost as the famed 
\allombrosa where for the last time he looked upon the sun 
-how much the varied and transcendent beauty of his birth- 
place, had to do with that quick and intelligent observation 
of physical phenomena, that inwafd and powerful sympathy 
with nature in all her moods, which afterward bore fruit so 
rich for our advantage. 

After a thorough preparation according to the methods 
ot those days, the latter part of it in Phillips Academy at 
Andover,* Mr. Marsh entered the college of which his father 
was an honored Trustee, in the summer of 1816. 

From the first he threw himself with eagerness into the 
new studies which both stimulated and gratified his love of 
knowledge. He was in full health, though slender in person, 
and was noted, even then, for remarkable quickness of per- 
ception, strength of memory, and a sound and discriminating 
judgment. At the same time, by kind and endearing qual- 
ities of heart, by inherent modesty and ingenuousness he 
drew to himself the regard and affection of all who knew him. 
"As a writer," says his eminent classmate, Mr. Justice '. 
Nesmith, "he expressed his thoughts in a plain, direct, per- 
spicuous and forcible style, without much ornament. As a 
student he was laborious, extending his investigations far 
beyond the common and daily routine assigned in the col- 
lege curriculum. He not only faithfully read the Greek and 
Latin authors of the course, but gained a substantial knowl- 
edge of the French, German, Spanish and Italian." These he 

•Appendix, Note II. 








must have learned without help, for at that time no instruc- 
tor of either of the modern languages was to be found in the 
college. His natural aptitude for linguistic pursuits was al- 
ready showing itself. Since that day the methods and facil- 
ities for the critical study of language have been so greatly 
enlarged as almost to constitute a new science, but I am not 
quite sure that we have in proportion a higher appreciation 
of the beauty of ancient literature, or leave our studies with 
a more sincere reverence and love for the intellectual mas- 
ters of a former age. 

I need hardly remind you that during nearly the whole 
of Mr. Marsh's residence at Dartmouth, the college was 
passing through the most critical period of its history, was 
struggling, against great odds, to maintain that principle of 
the law which, affirmed, would ensure to every similar insti- 
tution in the land an independent position. Of the counsel- 
lors of the college, his own father was one of the ablest, most 
trusted and most honored. 

To whatever we may ascribe it, whether to the unusual 
stimulus drawn from the living questions of the day, which, 
like a subtle, electric atmosphere, seemed to pervade every 
mind, — whether to some happy combination of conditions 
which brought together here in sympathy many minds of 
finer mould, — certain it is that the college has seldom seen 
gathered within its walls a body of enthusiastic scholars of 
more earnest purpose, of higher aims, or of more admirable 
achievement, than during the years that marked the open- 
ing and progress of that struggle. I shall be pardoned, I am 
sure, if I recall a few of the names on that honored roll. 
There comes first to my mind that of Charles B. Haddock, 
regarded by his immediate contemporaries as almost without 
fault, of rare grace of person and symmetry of mind, and 
of the same class, Joseph Torrey, the accomplished scholar 
in languages, letters and arts, and John Wheeler, the elo- 
quent preacher and President. Following by a twelvemonth, 
I find the names of Carlton Chase, for twenty-six years a re- 



vered Bishop of the Episcopal Church ; and Jonathan P. 
Cushing, tutor, Professor and President of Hampden Sydney 
College in Virginia ; and Nathan W. Fiske, who rilled so hon- 
orably the chairs of the ancient languages and of philosophy 
at Amherst ; and William Goodell, none the less a scholar 
because he devoted his life to the missionary service, who 
gave to the Turkish nation, almost with his dying hand, the 
entire Bible translated into the Armeno-Turkish tongue ; 
and James Marsh, illustrious as a scholar, philosopher, and 
instructor of extraordinary influence, who, as President of the 
University of Vermont, with the sympathy and help of his 
able coadjutors, stamped ineffaceably the clear impress of 
his pure, thoughtful, philosophic spirit upon the institution, — 
who first adequately introduced to his countrymen the writ- 
ings of Coleridge, and who, had he lived to complete his 
plans, would have taken high rank with the philosophers of 
the age. Passing onward but a single year, I find the name 
of George Bush, the accomplished Orientalist ; and Prof. Wil- 
liam Chamberlain, who, beloved by all and respected every- 
where, infused the full spirit of the ancients into his instruc- 
tions. In close fellowship with these and others like them, 
but a year later, was John Aiken, a thorough lover of 
good learning, and Kufus Choate, who, marching with easy 
and graceful step along the difficult paths of college studies, 
was already giving promise of his brilliant career ; and a little 
later Chief Justice Perley, who, had he not turned to the 
law, would have been perhaps even more distinguished as a 
man of vast and various learning. 

The names of these men and of others kindred with 
them, handed down from class to class in the generous tra- 
ditions of college life, kindled the flame of noble aspiration 
in many a soul, and did, you can never tell how much, to 
make our beloved Alma Mater what she should always be, 
the fostering mother of modest but profound scholars, of 
orators, of jurists, of statesmen, of lovers of their country, of 
ministers of righteousness and of truth. 



V 



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10 

cone^tTifMr^T 6 * ^ ^ ^ at ^ 
factor in the t'^r 7 /" * tlme ""*** * 8 a * 
H g h tide of su c ss t:^ s °o n t^' ^ * ^ 
-g ^on an occupation l h I ^Jt T 77 !" Cnter - 
mal, was characteristic viz thai "Z i5? "^ C ° nge " 
ries of the college Z ,i t gU be Ueav the ^ra- 

Btudies. Even Sl^ f ^ *° « ^ fa ™<* 

*• mml^S^ T WitH eUthUSiaSm U P° D 
be ever after pursue TJu r ^ ^^ *' hich 

jet si mp l y as a st„dv H T* ^^ ° f "*****. nor 

Lre tho/o^hlvtow £ " g7 ' ^ ** he ^ ht ^ 

better able ^ £ce t ie T 7^ SP ° ke them ' ^ b * 
both in the Itri^hTr dViliZatiOD ^ *""* 

" with fe 7 . Lt™C JST £ of his ; atlier ' and conti - ed 

1825 * Soon ,7! WaS admitt ed to the bar in 

mutual stimnjj ot - !' i Md SCh ° larS ' and tbe 

began to ££ ° £? ^ ^ ■** Here he 
of ensravin^s »W,i a „ , ° make a collection 

with friends I,,, f i , C0untl 7- Here, surrounded 
ne cuSVL^ '>.»! H> one a-hich 
He.e he formed thofe Z££?ZL '" *! C °"""> 
«*0le life, ami here too l! 7 g " e TO to bis 

chasten ambition 1!,' * ' W B °" OWS ">"'* 

^ he ,oa ^0^, "n "l ^ ^ ^ 
which he had chosen „, i 7 ^acting profession 

studies, enricW M« i , '" P™* his cheri ^ 



11 

observation, those stores of knowledge which he afterwards 
employed for ends so useful and noble. 

I cannot, perhaps, more fitly portray the life of Mr- 
Marsh than by referring, as rapidly as any degree of justice 
and fairness will allow, to some of his principal works in 
letters, in legislation, and diplomacy. One of the first re- 
sults of his studies was the printing, in 1838, of an Icelandic 
grammar, based on that of Prof. Kask. I have understood, 
however, that he became so dissatisfied with this work that 
he endeavored, not long afterwards, to suppress it, and it 
now can rarely be found. 

A more vigorous and popular indication of the drift of 
his thought appears in an oration delivered in August, 1843, 
before the Philomathesian Society of Middlebury College. 
It bore the somewhat singular and striking title of " The 
Goths in New England." Its object was to demonstrate and 
defend the influence of what he calls the Gothic element — 
akin to if not the same as what we commonly call the Anglo- 
Saxon,— upon the mind and character of our English and 
Puritan forefathers. It is written with epigrammatic vigor, 
and smites what seems to him untrue and evil as with the 
hammer of Thor. 

" The intellectual character of our Puritan forefathers," 
he said, " is that derived by inheritance from our remote 
Gothic ancestry, restored by its own inherent elasticity to its 
primitive proportions, upon the removal of the shackles and 
burdens which the spiritual and intellectual tyranny of Rome 
had for centuries imposed upon it ; but its moral traits are a 
superinduction of the temper and spirituality of Christianity 
upon the soul of the Goth, under conditions best suited to 
purify the heart, and steel to the utmost the energies of the 
spirit.'' 

Let me ask you also to notice his conception of the 
Gothic character. "The mind of England," he goes onto 
say, " is, like her language, composed of two hostile elements, 




12 



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& 



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the Gothic and the Roman ; the former predominating in the 
foundation, the latter in the superstructure. I shall do my 
audience the justice to suppose that they are too well in- 
structed to be the slaves of that antiquated and vulgar pre- 
judice which makes Gothicism and barbarism synonymous. 
The Goths, the common ancestors of the inhabitants of 
Northwestern Europe, are the noblest branch of the Cau- 
casian race. We are their children. It was the spirit of 
the Goth that guided the Mayflower across the trackless 
ocean ; the blood of the Goth that flowed at Bunker's Hill." 
" Nor were the Goths the savage and destructive devastators 
that popular error has made them. They indeed overthrew 
the dominion of Eome, but they renovated her people ; they 
prostrated her corrupt government, but they respected her 
monuments ; and Theodoric the Goth not only spared but 
protected many a precious memorial, which Italian rapacity 
and monkish superstition have since annihilated. The old 
lamentation, Quod non fecerunt Barbari, fecere Barheiini, 
contains a world of truth, and had not Eome's own sons 
been her spoilers she might have shone at this day in all the 
splendor of her Augustan age." "The Goth is characterized 
by the reason, the Eoman by the understanding ; the one by 
imagination, the other by fancy ; the former aspires to the 
spiritual, the latter is prone to the sensuous. The Gothic 
spirit produced a Bacon, a Shakspeare, a Milton ; the Bo- 
man, an Arkwright, a Brindley, and a Locke. It was a Ro- 
man that gathered up the coals on which St. Lawrence had 
been broiled ; a Goth who, when a fellow disciple of the 
great Swiss reformer had rescued his master's heart from the 
enemy, on the field where the martyr fell, snatched that 
heart from its preserver and hurled it, yet almost palpitating 
with life, into the waters of a torrent, lest some new super- 
stition should spring from the relics of Zwingli." 

These eloquent words of vivid characterization suf- 
ficiently indicate the spirit and foreshadow the purpose of 
an address now rarely to be found. Whether, after a larger 








13 

study of national character, he retained without modification 
his earlier opinions, or whether he would have always ex- 
pressed them with the same unmitigated force of the vernac- 
ular, I am not sure, though I suppose that in his fundamental 
judgment there was no radical change. Yet it is interesting to 
remember that the larger part of his, public life was after- 
wards passed among those races to whose influence he here 
ascribes the less pure, the less exalted and spiritual elements 
of our varied and complex civilization ; races, however, 
which in these later days have manifested an energy and 
perseverance, lofty aspirations and wise action, of which our 
fathers could hardly believe them capable, and which have 
drawn to the Italians the respect and sympathy of the world. 

In 1842, Mr. Marsh was chosen to represent his District 
in the Congress of the United States. Few States have ex- 
erted a more weighty or a more beneficial influence in the 
national councils than Vermont. This somewhat extraor- 
dinary influence, far beyond what her size, or natural posi- 
tion, or commercial importance would suggest, she owes 
largely to the fact that she has aimed to place in those coun- 
cils her best citizens,— men of learning, integrity and emi- 
nent ability,— and having learned their worth has been 
wise enough not to throw away their dearly bought 
experience, but has held them to a long term of ser- 
vice, while the weight of their authority, the authority of 
character, and knowledge, and political wisdom, has grown 
with every year. Of all those who have so well represented 
her in the House or; in the Senate, she has had none more 
learned, and few more able in any respect, than Mr. Marsh. 
The seven years that he spent in Washington, from 1842 to 
1849, were full of political excitements. They were marked 
by the admission of Texas to the Union, the Mexican war, 
fierce and acrimonious discussions of slavery, and changes of 
administrations. In his general convictions as to measures 
and policy, Mr. Marsh was clear and firm, but he was no 



I 



11 

partisan. To all matters of interest to his State and to the 
nation he devoted himself with characteristic fidelity, and to 
some with a deep personal interest. 

In becoming a statesman he did not forget to be a 
scholar, and one of the measures to which he gave unusual 
attention was that for establishing the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion. It was his earnest desire, as it had been that of Mr. 
Choate before him, that a portion of the annual income of 
the generous bequest of Smithson should be devoted to the 
gradual formation of a public library, " composed of valuable 
works pertaining to all departments of human knowledge." 
His speech on the bill which provided for this was a strong 
argument in favor of such an appropriation, as conducing 
more surely than any thing else to that intellectual indepen- 
I dence, that " freedom from slavish deference to foreign prece- 

dents and authorities in all matters of opinion," without 
which our liberty is but half achieved. We can best gain a 
knowledge of fundamental principles, he thought, through the 
study of philosophy and history, in the recorded wisdom of 
" successive generations of philosophers and statesmen." To 
such men, made wise by study, every nation is greatly indebt- 
ed. This he endeavored to show by reference to our own his- 
tory. Our Constitution itself was chiefly framed by men of 
high education and elegant attainments. "Jefferson," he said, 
"had the best private library in America, and was a man of 
multifarious if not of profound learning. The state papers 
of that remarkable era are, with few exceptions, obviously 
productions of men not merely of inspired genius or of pa- 
tient thought, but of laborious acquisition ; and they are full, 
not of that cheap learning which is proved by pedantic 
quotation, but of that sound discipline which is tbe unequi- 
vocal result of extensive reading and diligent research." 
"All men, in fact, who have acted upon opinion, who 
have contributed to establish principles that have left their 
impress for ages, have spent some part of their lives in scho- 
lastic retirement. It is this very point— the maintenance of 






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15 

principles discovered and defended by men prepared for 
that service by severe discipline and laborious study — that 
so strikingly distinguishes the English rebellion of 1649 and 
our own Eevolution, from most other insurrectionary move- 
ments, and particularly from the French Eevolution. The 
English and American statesmen of those two periods were 
contending for truths, the French atheists and philosophers 
for interests; the former sought to learn their duties, the lat- 
ter concerned themselves about their rig/ds; the Anglo- 
Saxon was inspired by principle, the Gaul was instigated by 
passion." This admirable speech, so earnest for its immedi- 
ate end, was really a noble plea for high statesmanship, an 
argument for generous culture, for a thorough knowledge of 
history and political philosophy, in those who would guide 
the nation along the broad highway of advancing civilization. 
Let those who have blamed our nation for its backward- 
ness in letters remember that we have had no British Mu- 
seum, with^its vast resources in literature and art ; no Biblio- 
thtque-du-roi, with its million of volumes ; no Bodleian, 
with its accumulation of generations ; no University libra- 
ries like those of Gottingen, or Leipsic, or Berlin. At that 
time there was not in the whole country a library which was 
not miserably deficient in every branch of liberal study, even 
of those of greatest interest to ourselves. The Congressional 
Library of about forty thousand volumes,— on the whole 
well chosen, — did not then have more than a hundred, per- 
haps" not more than fifty, out of the million printed volumes 
of German research. In all our domain we had not the ma- 
terial for the history of our own country, or for verifying the 
references or correcting the mistakes of foreign writers. 
"Histories indeed we have," said Mr. Marsh, "but little 
history. True, we have Kobertson, and Hume, and Voltaire, 
and Gibbon, and above all Alison, a popular writer in these 
days, and 

• Like Sir A<rrippa. for profound 
And solid lvinsr much renowned,' 







16 

but of those materials from which true history is to be 
drawn, we have little, very little." Bancroft could not have 
written the story of the struggling colonies, nor Ticknor his 
admirable portrayal of Spanish literature, nor Prescott 
the splendid and cruel adventures of Spanish arms, nor 
Motley the fortunes of liberty and religion in the Nether- 
lands, but from sources obtained by their individual en- 
terprise and at their personal cost. 

These efforts of Mr. Choate and Mr. Marsh, and of 
others like them, to secure at least one library in the country 
adequate to the needs of scholars, were not immediately suc- 
cessful ; but they stimulated other minds, they directed the 
thoughts of legislators, and guided the beneficence of the 
rich, and now, — thanks to the wisdom of the national gov- 
ernment, thanks to the liberality of our Astors and Bateses 
and Peabodys, — this necessary aid to independent investi- 
gation is, at least in part, supplied. 

In 1848, Mr. Marsh made an able speech with reference 
to slavery in the remote territories of New Mexico, Califor- 
nia and Oregon. I have not time, nor is there special need, 
to refer to the general scope of his lucid argument ; but it is 
an interesting illustration of the views taken of two of those 
territories to hear so wise a statesman and so ardent an 
American declare that they were so far off, with natural af- 
Unities for other social and political relations, that it would 
be better if they were set off into an independent republic, 
as, geographically, they were separated from us by the im- 
passable barrier of stupendous mountains. " What common 
interests," he said, " has Boston with the Bay of San Fran- 
cisco, or New York with Monterey, or Charleston and Sa- 
vannah and New Orleans with Puget's Sound and the mouth 
of the Columbia ? True, their people have the same sun 
and light and air and common humanity and religion and 
God, but their social and pecuniary relations are as diverse 
from each other as are the interests of the camel drivers of 
the desert from those of the ermine hunters of Siberia. 



m 



17 

Oregon and California lie so far toward the setting sun that 
they lose themselves in the East." And these words were 
uttered in sober earnestness less than thirty-five years ago. 
Not then had any statesman, with wise forecast, or any adven- 
turous schemer, so" much as dreamed of the practicability of 
binding to us, in chains of steel, those distant domains ; 
far less that our paternal government would be tempted, 
by any possible combination of circumstances, to provide 
for its children of a future generation by the purchase with 
millions of gold, of a territory of which we even now know 
but little, beyond the fact that, in area, it is more than twice 
as large as California and Oregon together, and is lying as 
far beyond them as they are beyond the Mississippi. 

Among the literary productions of this period, I should 
not forget to mention an instructive address — crowded with 
information — before the Burlington Mechanics Institute, in 
1843 ; an oration before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of 
Dartmouth College, in 1844 ; an admirable discourse on 
" Human Knowledge," delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa 
Society at Cambridge, in 1847 ; and another, in the same 
year, before the literary- societies of Union College on " The 
American Historical School." Like all his addresses, these 
were the overflowings of a full mind, and will well repay a 
careful study. 

Mr. Marsh's useful services in Congress were ended in 
1849, when, to the honor of the government, he received the 
appointment of Minister Resident in Turkey. 

The diplomacy of the United States has not always been 
entrusted to the most able or the most experienced. We 
have not a class of statesmen expressly trained for this deli- 
cate and sometimes very difficult kind of civil service. For- 
tunate in our entire separation from the complicated and in- 
tricate systems of the old world, we have not beeu called 
habitually to watch other nations with special jealousy, or to 
fear the violations of our rights. Owing, it may be, to this 
comparative isolation, we have, for the most part, been free 



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18 

from those perplexing and difficult questions which European 
nations, the most enlightened and free, have not been able 
to avoid. We have endeavored to respect the rights of 
others, and have made our influence felt rather through 
the moral force of our example and of our remarkable pros- 
perity, than through any system of propagandism or entang- 
ling alliances. For this voluntary reserve we have some- 
times received censure ; but the advice of Washington and 
the fathers of the republic has been generally felt to be 
sound, and while we have scrupulously avoided interference 
with the internal affairs of other nations, we have been none 
the less jealous of any interference with our own. 

Nor can it be said that our foreign relations, sometimes 
very critical, and sometimes difficult of adjustment, have not, 
on the whole, been ordered with prudence and wisdom, with 
skill and energy. The emergency has generally found the 
man equal to it, whether in the important position of Secre- 
tary of State at home, or of minister abroad. A minister to 
a foreign government is charged with various delicate and re- 
sponsible duties. He is commonly the organ of communica- 
tion between his own and the foreign state ; he speaks the 
sentiments of the government, not his own ideas merely ; he 
is in some sense the guardian of his countrymen abroad ; in 
times of war or civil commotion his duties may be as difficult 
as they are important ; his eye must be sleepless, his ear 
never dull, his hand ever ready, his whole intelligence watch- 
ful and alert. During our civil war the position of our rep- 
resentatives in London and Paris was perhaps second to 
none in actual difficulty and responsibility, except to those of 
the Secretary of State, the General of our armies, and the 
President of the still united republic. Besides these public 
duties there are others devolving upon our foreign ministers 
more indefinable in nature, but of hardly less importance. 
The wisdom and intelligence, the culture and civility of 
a country are judged abroad by its representatives. 
An exhibition of rudeness or ignorance, of frivolity or self- 



MOH 









1!) 

conceit, may be almost worse than a crime, and on the other 
hand sound learning, solid and unpretentious, an acquain- 
tance with affairs, a bearing simple, courteous and dignified, 
carry with them weight and honor, dispose favorably those 
who might be hostile, and among the intelligent and cid- 
tured, sensibly affect the reputation of the country itself. 

Mr. Marsh was appointed resident minister of the 
United States in Turkey in 1819, by President Taylor. Hav- 
ing waited in Italy for the war steamer which was to take 
him to the Turkish capital, he reached Constantinople in 
February, 1850. A new life was here before him, new lan- 
guages to be acquired, a new civilization or semi-civilization 
to be studied. Here the East and the West met in collision. 
" It was a Mohammedan world, modified by a corrupt Chris- 
tianity." Here in the wonderful capital, so fitted by position 
to stretch its imperial hand over both Asia and Europe, cov- 
eted by every conqueror, emperor, sultan or czar, from Con- 
stantine to Napoleon, from Napoleon to the latest Alexander, 
the tumultuous currents of ambition, of public and private 
method and aim, of knowledge and of faith, have dashed 
angrily against each other. It is impossible for a thought- 
ful student of history and civilization to stand at that cen- 
tral point, without a more vivid sense of the course of empire 
in the past, and many an anxious question about the 
future ; nor can he fail to see the intricacy and difficulty 
as well as the gravity of the problems which the coming gen- 
eration, if not our own, will have to solve. 

Although the duties of his post were not at once very 
arduous, yet to one so conscientious, modest and pains- 
taking they involved a considerable amount of labor. His 
reputation as a scholar and an upright and honorable man 
had preceded him, and the American residents were glad to 
welcome one whom they would instinctively respect. They 
found a gentleman grave, dignified and thoughtful, of keen 
observation, somewhat reserved in manner, but of admirable 
conversational powers on every topic worthy of serious 



■ 



20 

consideration. He was sincere and cordial, and ready 
to investigate thoroughly every case in which his ad- 
vice or aid was involved.* As far as possible he en- 
deavored to form independent judgments, and to follow 
the opinions of others only when it was impossible to make 
investigations for himself. In pursuance of this design he 
began almost immediately on reaching his post the study of 
the Turkish language, difficult not only in its nature, but 
from the absence of many of those helps which are so abun- 
dantly provided for a knowledge of the richer languages of 
the West. This was followed almost at once by the study 
of the Arabic and the Persian ; and although, — so high was his 
idea of what constitutes the knowledge of a language, — he 
would never allow these to be spoken of as among his acqui- 
sitions, it is yet certain that he gained knowledge enough to 
be of essential service to him in his public duties. His mas- 
tery of languages, indeed, gave him a marked preeminence 
among the foreign ministers at Constantinople. On his arri- 
val he was able to converse with the representatives of the 
French, German, Italian, Swedish, Danish and Spanish 
Courts in their own tongues. Nor was he there without 
friends. On the shore of the Bosphorus he found a colony, 
if I may so call it, of men and women speaking his own 
tongue, of simple and sincere lives, of rare learning, of schol- 
arly thought, of good judgment and uncommon pi'actical 
talents, whose intercourse was always acceptable, never ob- 
trusive ; and to whose excellence and valuable services to 
learning and religion he never failed to bear willing testimo- 
ny. He had the best opportunities, from long-continued 
and familiar intercoiirse, for fairly estimating both the char- 
acter and the attainments of the resident American mission- 
aries, and he believed that the importance of their work coidd 
hardly be overestimated. Of the character of the Turkish 
race, too, in its fundamental qualities, I think he formed a 



•See Appendix, No. IV. 



-ffrrtiJ*fiiVwtft . 






21 

higher judgment than we have been accustomed in late years 
to hear commonly expressed. The great Eastern question 
was then as now, What shall be the fate of Constantinople ? 
He watched with the greatest interest the policy of the so- 
called great powers of Europe, and I make no mistake in say- 
ing that it was at that time his firm conviction, based upon 
careful observation and anxious study, that the acquisition of 
Constantinople by Russia, which of course implied the pos- 
session of all Turkey in Europe, would immeasurably retard 
the progress of civilization in that region. He was not blind 
to the enormous evils and abuses of the Turkish rule, but 
under that rule, bad as it was, there were many elements of 
progress visibly and invisibly at work, which he thought 
would speedily become extinct should such a change of mas- 
ters take place. 

Early in the year 1851, with the permission of his own gov- 
ernment, Mr. Marsh made an extended tour of extreme interest 
to him, through Egypt, (where he had important interviews 
with the Pasha,) and thence by way of Mount Sinai and Petra 
through Palestine. Not even at this day a journey without 
peril, ii was at that time much more difficult than at present. 
Throughout the whole of it he was accompanied by Mrs. 
Marsh, whose high spirit and unfailing resolution enabled 
her, for many years an invalid, to bear the fatigues and meet 
the annoyances of the route with more than cheerfulness, 
and to receive a full share of the gratifications and advan- 
tages of those weary and anxious but delightful months. At- 
tended as he was, their progress was of necessity debberate, — 
fifty days after mounting their camels in Cairo before dismis- 
sing them at Hebron, — and they did not reach Palestine until 
nearly midsummer, when the sickly and dangerous season 
was rapidly approaching. It is not surprising that the party 
suffered from illness, and twice Mr. Marsh himself was 
brought very near to death. Here again he found himself 
greatly indebted to the devoted kindness of Christian mis- 
sionaries, both English and American, as well as to the 



im n Aii*i.^ 






22 

medical skill and faithful care of a Spanish priest who ren- 
dered him much service. 

In the following year, 1852, he was directed by our gov- 
ernment to proceed to Athens as special minister to Greece, 
on a mission of great delicacy and importance. The Eev. 
Dr. King, an American missionary who had long resided in 
Athens, — his wife being a native Greek, — a man of great 
learning and of pure and beneficent life, thoroughly in sym- 
pathy with the Greek people, to whom he had come twenty- 
three years before, entrusted by the liberality of his own 
countrymen with food for the famishing,— this man was 
brought to public trial on the trumped-up charge of reviling 
the Greek religion. The only ground for this accusation was 
the fact that he had preached in his own house to such as 
chose to hear him, the generally received truths of evange- 
lical Protestantism. 

In itself the question at issue was not, perhaps, of ex- 
treme consequence, yet it involved not only the rights of an 
American citizen, but the rights of property and freedom of 
worship, both included among the fundamental principles of 
the Greek constitution. The trial was urged on by the stron"- 
partisan animosities of a few zealots and by a Greek newspaper 
under Kussian control. It was conducted without regard to 
justice and right. The conviction of Dr. King was foreordained, 
and the independent scholar, the just and fearless defender 
of liberty, the beneficent distributor of bounties, was con- 
demned to imprisonment for a time, and then to banishment. 
Against this unjust decision of the court a strong protest was 
drawn up by Mr. King himself, in his character of consular 
agent of the United States. The sober second thought of 
the Greeks themselves seemed also to indicate the conviction 
that neither law nor equity had been considered in the trial. 
There were other claims, also, of the missionary. He had 
early purchased land, which in the prosperous growth of the 
city had become of considerable value. A portion of this, 
the government had taken for a public square, but for which 



m'i*lll«'iO<litttlWii>iii in I, j 






I ■ 






23 

it did not find it convenient to pay, and the unsatisfactory 
claim had run on for many years. It was to investigate this 
complete case that Mr. Marsh was sent to Athens by Mr. 
"Webster. He entered upon the work with the thoroughness 
and independence which characterized all his studies. He 
had to examine with the greatest care an immense mass of 
manuscript in modern Greek, and very blindly written, and 
he was obliged to master every point of the, Greek code bear- 
ing upon the question of religious toleration. He daily began 
his work at daybreak, and continued at the task, with little 
interruption, till evening. He often said afterward, that in 
no part of his life had the strain been so great upon body 
and mind as during the labor of these hot months. The re- 
sult seems to have been a complete vindication of our coun- 
tryman, Dr. King, and Mr. Marsh expressed his conclusion 
with an emphasis which reminds one of the stock from which 
he sprung. "The legal tribunals of Greece," he said, " had 
been guilty of an abuse of the principles of justice, and a 
perversion of the. rules of law, as flagitious as any that ever 
disgraced the records of the Star Chamber." There was in 
this declaration the power of truth ultimately acknowledged 
by the Greeks themselves, and the matters were finally 
arranged on a basis more nearly approaching to justice. No 
one can read the full story of his labors in this case, as given 
in the correspondence and reports —a test case in the ques- 
tions involved,— without a profound impression of the clear- 
ness of his perception, the skill with which complications 
purposely twisted about it were disentangled, and the vigor 
with which his conclusions were impressed upon the minds 
of Ins reluctant opponents. 

As minister resident at Constantinople, Mr. Marsh's 
diplomatic rank was below that of every ambassador, however 
small the State which he represented ; "but," says .me long 
resident in the Turkish empire, "his reputation for learning 
and character was such that, in those ways in which diplo- 
matists, skilled in the profound mysteries of court ceremonies, 



X. 



('■ 



24 

know how to set aside etiquette without violating it, he was 
often treated with special honor by the highest representa- 
tives of the great powers. He was confessedly the most 
learned man in that great diplomatic circle, which in the very 
centre and maelstrom of diplomacy, discusses the questions 
that often agitate the world. All American residents in this 
respect were proud of him. He was an honor to their coun- 
try and to themselves personally. In all his relations to the 
Sublime Porte he maintained that fidelity to truth and honor 
which wins at length, even in diplomacy. Having that char- 
acter himself, he could demand it from others with peculiar 
force. The Ottoman Porte is quite capable of making 
promises which it never fulfils, but it was not found wise to 
make a direct promise to Mr. Marsh and then attempt to 
evade it." 






Soon after the change of political administration in 
1853, Mr. Marsh was recalled from his post, and after spend- 
ing a little time in Central and Western Europe returned to 
the United States. The nearly six years of freedom from 
public employment which followed were devoted in part to 
his favorite studies and to various literary works, and in part 
to the service of his native State. It is to the comparative 
leisure of these years that we owe the two volumes of 
lectures on the English language and Earlier Literature, 
which have held their place as perhaps the most sincere, 
independent and valuable contribution which we have 
made to the better understanding and higher honor of 
our mother tongue. These volumes have all the char- 
acteristics of every production of their author,— the orig- 
inal and thorough investigation, the bursting fulness of 
information, the lucid and orderly development, the earnest 
statement, the fair and judicial conclusion. One can hardly 
open these volumes at random without finding some fact that 
he never knew before, or some relations indicated, or some 
conclusions fairly drawn, which had hitherto escaped liim, and 



H 






25 

ho will find everywhere a fair and thoughtful criticism and 
sound literary judgment. 

Even more in another work, published a few years later, 
did these characteristics show themselves. In 1864, ap- 
peared the volume entitled " Man and Nature," the title of 
which was in a future and enlarged edition changed to " The 
Earth as Modified by Human Action." It probably struck 
with surprise those who had known Mr. Marsh through his 
reputation as a philologist and bibliographer alone or chief- 
ly, that he should have turned his attention to such a class 
of subjects. But they did not know that the love of nature 
was an inbred characteristic and, as if he were a mere natu- 
ralist, almost a passion with him. No landscape was too 
meagre, no insect or flower too insignificant to give him 
pleasure. But the mountains were his highest source of en- 
joyment, and in the days of manly health no degree of fa- 
tigue or difficulty deterred him from attempting to scale their 
heights and search out their mysteries. Nor did they know- 
that during all his long life, the delicate state of his eyes 
often compelled him for months and sometimes even for 
years together, to give up books entirely, and turn to nature 
alone for teaching. 

The bibliographical list of works consulted in the pre- 
paration of the volumes to which I have referred was large 
and from many languages, but far more than to books was 
the author indebted to his own remarkable habit of intelli- 
gent observation. That this power was unusual and notice- 
able, was the testimony of all who knew him most familiarly. 
But he saw so much because he knew so much. He brought 
to every object more than he received from it ; a mind already 
so full of knowledge that lie knew what to look for, and how 
to interpret what was present to the sense, to assign it its 
place and give it its value. "Self is the school-master," he 
wrote, ''whose lessons are best worth his wages. ... To the 
natural philosopher, the descriptive poet, the painter and 
the sculptor, as well as the common observer, the power most 



mm 



26 

important to cultivate, ami at the same time hardest to ac- 
quire, is that of seeing what is before him. Sight is a faculty, 
—seeing an art. The eye is a physical but not self-acting 
apparatus, and in general it sees only what it seeks." "This 
exercise of the eye I desire to promote, and next to moral 
and religious doctrine, I know no more important practical 
lessons in this earthly life of ours— which to a wise man is a 
school from the cradle to the grave— than those relating to 
the employment of the sense of vision in the study of nature." 
On the accession of President Lincoln in 1861, Mr. Marsh 
received the appointment of minister to the new kingdom of 
Italy,— the first minister to the first King. It is little to say, 
and yet it implies much, that no more fitting appointment 
was possible. He accepted the position at first with some 
reluctance, and it was not, as he himself said, till he got south 
of the Alps that he felt reconciled to stay at all. It could 
not then be anticipated that for more than twenty-one years 
he would retain his position without interruption, to the mu- 
tual advantage of both the States ; a length of foreign service 
in one important post, unexampled, I believe, in the history 
of our diplomacy. 

Italy was still in a transition state. The great minister, 
Count C'avour, alter gigantic efforts to consolidate the various 
kingdoms under one liberal monarch, had suddenly succumb- 
ed under the great burden, even in the moment of assured 
success. TLe new nation was not yet fairly established. It was 
passing through those anxious hours which attend a peo- 
ple rising in the enthusiasm of hope and new aspirations to 
cast off the chains forged and riveted by injustice and cruel- 
ty ; which attend a people long divided and broken up into 
small and hostile States, and kept so by jealousy and fear, 
who at last, with invincib'e lesolution over-leap the barriers 
which separate them, and, united in spirit and aim, stand at 
once with the noblest nations of the earth. It was fitting 
that such a people should be sustained by the cordial sym- 
pathy of the great Republic of the West, borne to them by 



27 






one whose high public character was in itself a guaranty of 

justice and honor. And on the other hand, our time of fiery 
trial was at hand. Our manhood was to be tested in the most 
sanguinary and terrible of wars, and it was of the highest 
importance that our aims, our purposes, our resources, our 
spirit should be represented to foreign nations the most wise- 
ly and efficiently. 

Mr. Marsh followed the Italian government, of course, in 
the change of its capital from Turin to Florence and from 
Florence to Eome. No foreign minister was more respected 
for learning, weight of character, and familiarity with affairs 
and long before the end of his protracted service, his personal 
influence with the court had become as efficient as it was 
wise and beneficent. 

It was greatly to the honor and the advantage of our 
government, whatever causes may have led to it, that through 
all the changes of administrations, and in spite of the clamor 
for office, he was retained at his post. No foreign diplomatist, 
however accomplished, could for a moment feel in his society 
that he was called to associate with one not fully his equal ; 
no man of letters or lover of antiquity, or student of history' 
or student of nature, or devotee of art, ever interrogated him 
without an intelligent response ; no political philosopher, 
watchful of national progress, no defender of absolutism,' 
could help honoring a Republic which committed its interests' 
to so learned, so wise, so conciliatory, so faithful an ambas- 
sador ; and no American traveller or resident could for a 
moment feel that his personal interests or the interests of the 
country were not safe in his hands.' 

The only change, if change were necessarv, should have 
been to some one of the few places of greater responsibility. 
But perhaps in the later decade of his service, no place could 

* "I know no European who had met him," says a recent writer in 

SwThta 1 Thavi 1 ^ "°! 8 'TIT eSteem ° f °" r country fro n r Lav ,: 

, 'ri r,„ I fV ;Ul1 ? ur ?P ean '>"•" <>f letters speak of him al 

was!"- 77, .%£ ^-an^tuunons-which perhaps in one sense he 



■ 



28 

have been found more to his mind, or the duties of which he 
could have administered with less fatigue. He was widely 
known ; he was universally respected ; he was greatly "be- 
loved by every one in the official Koman world from the king 
down."* And well he might have been ; for his interest and 
sympathies had become strongly enlisted in the substantial 
progress of the Italian people, so long had he watched their 
struggles for liberty, so fully identified with them in spirit 
had he become in some of their most serious endeavors. So 
thoroughly had he the confidence of those who knew him, that 
the governments of both Italy and Switzerland committed 
to him the decision of a question of boundary, which had been 
for many years in dispute, and his judgment, unlike that usual 
in such cases, was acquiesced in without a word of complaint 
on either side. 

If now we review, for a moment, his work in Constanti- 
nople, in Athens and in Italy, remembering how prompt, in- 
telligent, and efficient were his labors, how carefully he 
observed, and how thoroughly he understood, the spirit and 
genius and temperament of the people among whom he was 
thrown, — how fully, too, he apprehended the duties, both 
public and private, devolved upon him by his office, and 
how faithfully yet unobtrusively he performed them for so 
many years, we cannot hesitate to rank him among the very 
wisest and best, in the long role of diplomatists to whom 
the country has committed the conduct of her foreign policy. 
He was himself a noble example of what in speeches and 
orations, he had often insisted on, the influence in public 
life of a mind thoroughly disciplined, with large knowledge 
of history and philosophy, of books and of men. Happy for 
our country woidd it be if men of like purposes and similar 
attainments were oftener found in places of public trast. 

Nor let us forget that during all those years he never 
remitted his scholarly research, never ceased to find his 



* Appendix, Note V. 






2:1 

delight in new acquisitions, nor lost his love for the 
noblest poetry and the purest art. So long as his health 
permitted, and until a weakness in his hand prevented, 
he constantly used his pen, and many are the articles 
in contemporary publications which may be recognized 
by his initials or other marks of authorship, and it is 
understood that during the later years of his life he had in 
hand a series of essays on subjects of literary and scientific- 
interest, which, it may be hoped, will be found ready for 
publication. During these years, too, he was constantly 
gathering that valuable library, rich, as I learn from the 
highest authority, in its collection of choice editions of the 
great standard works in the leading literatures of the world, 
such works as a scholar would desire to have within his reach 
at all times, — rich in the department of linguistics, well sup- 
plied with materials for the study of the Eomance languages, 
and especially rich in works relating to the Northern tongues, 
his special love ; that library which the munificence of a 
son of Vermont has deposited, unbroken, with the University 
of his own State, of which it must always remain one of the 
unique and valuable treasures." 

It is hardly necessary, and yet it may be proper, to turn 
for a moment from the more public services, whether in letters 
or legislation or diplomacy, to gather into a narrower circle 
about the hearthstone of the man of whose works we have 
spoken. There will be nothing in that inner life to disappoint 
us. As he appeared, so he was. "The great end of human 
life," he once said, '-is not to do, but to be." The first 
characteristic of his life. I should say, was profound love of 
the truth and unswerving loyalty to it. This permeated 
his very being, controlled his opinions, governed his act- 
ions ; you see it in his speeches, you hear it in his words, 
you read it in his books. He was athirst for knowledge, 
for the reality and not for the appearance. He sought for it 









* Appendix, Note VI. 












.'ill 

as one seeks for hidden treasure, as a pilgrim seeks the holy 
land. His knowledge was not vague and general, but exact 
and we know not which to admire most, the rich abun- 
dance or the precision. In his address before the Mechanics 
Institute at Burlington, in 1843, for example, every one of 
its fifty columns has, on the average, some valuable fact, 
which, in substance or form would, I presume, be unknown 
to the majority of intelligent and well-read men ; and for 
his facts he did not depend on his imagination. If he speaks 
of the learned Hollander, whose excessive patriotism led him 
to write two huge volumes to prove that Dutch was the lan- 
guage of Paradise, he announces his very name, Goropius 
Becanus,— as if familiar with such sportive compositions,— 
and I dare say could have given chapter and page. When 
he would illustrate the legendary skill of the mediaeval work- 
ers m metals, he gives, I have no doubt from the original 
sources, the story of the Scandinavian Vulcan. Vaulundr- 
transposed in English to plain Wayland Smith— who made a 
sword so keen of edge and of such ethereal temper, that when 
in friendly contest he struck his rival on the crest of his- 
double-plated helmet, and asked him whether he felt the 
blow, he replied, that he felt as if cold water were running 
through him! and when he told him to shake himself, he fell 
apart, for the sword had cleft him in twain so deftly, that until 
he moved he did not know it. 

He endeavored to reach the truth by the shortest and 
most direct methods and no uncertainty would content him, 
when by additional labor, investigation or thought he could 
relieve his doubts. With similar directness lie imparted knowl- 
edge. ^ His style was simple, without verbiage, and without 
rhetorical artifice, clear in its purpose and going straight to its 
end, but eloquent with the force of sincere conviction. His 
mind was productive as well as accumulative, and grew not by 
accretion merely, but by development. His tastes were 
versatile. He received exquisite pleasure from music. He 
studied painting and sculpture and architecture. He loved 









32 

for any inferior end, from vanity or ambition, but with refer- 
ence to its highest uses ; for the elevation of the soul, for the 
comfort and help of man. 

The nobler ends of study he well defined in his dis- 
course on " Human Knowledge." " He that seeks knowl- 
edge," he said, " that he may thereby erect himself above 
his fellow-men, or subdue things, organized or inorganic, to 
his own private material uses, shall never tind it. He 
may learn much of the springs of depraved human action, 
much of the arts that enable the weak to control the 
strong, the few to profit by the slavery of the many,— much 
of the adaptation of external means to selfish ends ; but he 
shall never attain to the lofty goal of the genuine scholar, 
— the possession of the power which is alone the true ex- 
pression of the highest human knowledge, — the power, 
namely, to reign supreme over himself, to resist evil impulses 
from within and base temptations from without, to subdue 
his passions to his will, his will to his reason and his con- 
science." "Working as he did with this spirit, you could not 
but be impressed with the genuineness of the man through 
every fibre of his being. It was this moral element which 
imparted force to his diplomacy and weight to his words 
and opinions ; and which gives substantial excellence to his 
judgments in letters and art. 

His mind was many-sided, and as he sympathized with 
all learning, so he was the friend and helper of all lovers of 
learning and all genuine scholars. There was in Constan- 
tinople when Mr. Marsh was there, a student from Germany, 
drawn thither by the passion for original research. An article 
of his in one of the newspapers, attracted the friendly notice 
of our minister, who sent for him, offered him the use of his 
library and his good influences with the Turkish government. 
When the confusions of the Crimean war made it impossible 
to continue his scientific pursuits, Mr. Marsh advised him to 
go to America. This new thought ripened into a plan, 
and through this kind suggestion and the friendly aid which 



33 



followed, is cine in large part, the result that an admirable 
scholar found here a permanent home, and the United States 
can now clam, as her own, one of the most accomplished 
astronomers of the age, who, through his almost unaided 
labors has just presented to the observatories of America 
and Europe a series of astronomical charts, which surpass in 
accuracy and extent, any thing of the kind ever before 'at- 
tempted. 

In manner Mr. Marsh was grave, yet with a now of quiet 
humor; with something like shyness in company ; among 
strangers reserved, but not secretive; simple in his tastes 
as in his character, a lover of intelligent society and of 
truthful, unaffected men ; undisturbed by the prattle of chil- 
dren and ready to listen to their questions and add to their 
knowledge. His love for children was indeed remarkable 
and quite as remarkable was their love for him. 

He was familiar with the best literatures of the world of 
course, but he had his favorites-the great poets (as goes 
without the saying), but besides, the more racy and pictur- 
esque writers, the authors of the old Scandinavian legendary 
lore, Sir John Froissart in his rambling and most charming 
chronicles, Thomas Fuller and Sir Thomas Browne. He could 
Hardly be called popular, for he neither flattered nor would 
receive flattery, nor had he the light and airy arts of famili- 
arity winch are sometimes mistaken for sincere good will 
let he drew others to himself in strong personal attachment. 
ihose whom some men would inevitably alienate and drive 
into hostility or open quarrel, he, not of direct purpose 
bnt by natural superiority, by gentleness and sympathy 
and justice, would make his personal friends. There was 
perhaps nothing in his character more striking than its 
grand simplicity and directness. Affectation would have 
been as impossible to him as a positive falsehood. He 
was the same in every circle and in every position, always 
quietly dignified and modest, never supercilious, never sub- 
servient. Indeed, while he impressed every one most strong- 



U 

ly by his own personality, he himself seemed almost uncon- 
scious of that personality, so engrossed was he with the great 
subjects that filled his thoughts. 

In his condemnation of wrong he was unsparing, and the 
strength of his feelings often led him to apply severe epithets 
to the offense, even while the offender was treated with for- 
bearance. Sincere and truthful himself, he was quick to 
detect the opposite spirit in others and not easily deceived by 
fair words. Whatever was insincere, evasive and prevarica- 
ting, where he had a right to expect honest dealing, roused 
an indignation which he did not always take care to express 
in euphemisms, though the offender were prime minister of a 
kingdom. Offences against himself he hardly recognized, or 
quickly forgave. Private enemies he had none. His friends, 
and few had more, were grappled to him with hooks of steel. 
He was humane and generous, one who loved his fellow-men, 
a helper of the poor, a friend to the friendless ; and many 
are they who received his unobtrusive kindness, and were 
surprised with aid that came, they could only guess from 
whence. His sweetness of character no abuse of confidence 
ever embittered. He was literally a man who thought no 
evil, and his kindliness and unselfish interest in all who need- 
ed help was a matter of constant astonishment to those who 
knew how often they were taxed. His generosity was only 
limited by his means, and often, indeed, was exercised at 
considerable personal inconvenience. 

A man so thoughtful, so observant, so introspective, w-ith 
such native power of seeing the relations of things, could not 
fail to meditate much upon those high and mighty truths 
which concern the nature and destiny of the soul, on which 
revelation alone casts a clear light. Of his own personal 
convictions it does not become us to say much, when, in his 
native humility and self-distrust, he chose to keep silence ; 
but I know that all sacred things he regarded with profound 
reverence, and that every word of his writings is in complete 
harmony with them. He believed in the life everlasting, and 






35 

I do not doubt that the substantial truths of Christianity, 

which in childhood he heard from the lips of father and 

mother, he always cherished ; and that his hopes, like theirs, 

rested in the simple faith of Him who 

eighteen hundred years ago was nail'd 

For our advantage, on the bitter cross. 

Mr. Marsh's remarkably tine and robust physical consti- 
tution never fully rallied from a severe illness, which he suf- 
fered in Eome in 1872. But the effect showed itself not in the 
loss of mental power, nor in any specific physical infirm- 
ity, so much as in a general failure of strength, an inability 
to walk and climb as he once could, and other marks of the 
natural weakness of age. It was his custom to leave the hot 
city in the Summer for some cooler retreat in the moun- 
tains, and the last year he chose that beautiful Yallom- 
brosa, not far from Florence, 

—where the Etrurian shades 
High over-arched embower. 

Here, nearly three thousand feet above the sea, with still 
loftier heights around, with a beautiful outlook over the fer- 
tile valley of the Arno, he found quiet and rest. Here were 
sunshine and shadow ; hither he brought his books ; here in 
an old monastery, disused as such, was a School of Forestry, 
established by the Italian government, in the studies and 
researches of which he always took a lively interest. Here, 
bathed in the delicious atmosphere, he spent the days in 
rest or reading, in revision of some of his books, in serene 
enjoyment of a country life. And so the last hour stole 
upon him unannounced, unanticipated. It was in the heart 
of the beautiful Summer— the 23rd of July of the last year. 
He had been sitting throughout the day under the shade of 
the trees, conversing freely with those about him. giving to his 
nieces an interesting lesson on the clouds, and discussing with 
a friend the latest reports of the English in Egypt, with all the 
force and clearness of middle life. As the shadows lengthened, 
complaining a little of weariness, he retired to the house and 



36 

soon after, to his bed, where he quietly rested. Shortly before 
nine there came on a difficulty of breathing. The best and 
most watchful of friends was by his side. A physician of 
eminence, fortunately near at hand, was immediately sum- 
moned, but all remedies proved unavailing. To her, whose 
welfare he had tenderly guarded for so many years, and who 
now administered some simple draught, assuring him that it 
would bring relief, though he received it. he replied very 
calmly, and with a gentle motion of his hand as if in full 
recognition of his real condition, "No, my dear, no." No 
other word was spoken in that sorrowful chamber, and in 
a few minutes more, without struggle or pain, the wheels of 
life stood still. "He had gone over to the majority." It was 
indeed a euthanasia. "When the physician saw the venerable 
head sink back so peacefully upon the pillow, he exclaimed 
with deep emotion, "Ecco veramente la morte del giusto !" 
There seemed a peculiar, an almost ideal fitness and 
harmony between Mr. Marsh's tastes and character and all 
the circumstances of these last days. Had his own wishes 
been consulted as to the time, place and manner of his 
departure, he could hardly have desired anything different. 

Like ripe fruit he dropped 



Into his mother's lap." 

The mortal remains, under the direction of an officer of 
the King's household, were removed from the hotel where 
he had been staving to the great monastic hall of the 
School of Forestry, which, by the loving hands of Pro lessors 
and students, was decorated with boughs and garlands from 
the woods and the hill-sides ; and there, wrapped in the 
stars and stripes, covered with sweet immortelles from the 
hills, the venerated form of the beloved dead was reverently 
watched over by day and by night, till the necessary arrange- 
ments were completed. In the early morning of the fifth 
day, a sad procession of government officials and local- 
authorities, of professors and students, with a few nearer 
friends and members of the American Embassy, bore the 







/ 



37 

mortal remains, with every mark of honor, to the distant 
railway at Pontassieve, on the way to Rome. 

Nearthe Southwestern limits of the Imperial city, beyond 
the Aventine, overlooked by the lofty pyramidal monument 
of Caius Cestius, lies the small cemetery of the Protestants. 
A peaceful and beautiful enclosure, with stately groups of 
cypresses, the green sod starred with daisies and violets, 
within sound of the murmuring river, within sight of the 
Sabine hills and the Alban mountains, it holds the ashes of 
mam Englishmen, of Germans and Russians, and of some 
of our own countrymen, who seeking health or knowledge or 
pleasure, have there found a grave. 

Thither was he borne with every tribute of heartfelt re- 
spect from King and ministers and foreign ambassadors, to 
await the final ceremonies ; and there on the 17th of October, 
in the presence of a few friends, with simple religious rites, 
all that was mortal of our noble-minded and well-beloved 
scholar, of this stateman large of heart and sound of head — 
of this friend, tender and strong, was committed to the friend- 
ly earth. And here, with this imperfect sketch of a life, which 
stretches an unbroken arch of beauty and honor, of sincerity 
and truth, from the sweet vale of the Queechy to the banks 
of the Tiber,— we, too, must say farewell. 

If the glory of a State is made up of the well-earned 
fame of its citizens, if the best treasure of a college is in the 
noble lives of its sons, rich indeed is that Institution which can 
hold up the names of scholars such as he to the admiration and 
generous rivalry of all who can be inspired by high examples ; 
happy the State which can call such men to her councils, or 
give them— not herself impoverished by the gift— to the larger 
service of the Piepublic. 












APPENDIX- 



NOTE I. 
The life and character of the Hon. Charles Marsh has been admirably 
,„,rtraved in a Memorial Address, read before the Vermont Historical 
Society in 1870, by Hon. James Barrett. The mother of Mr. Charles Marsh 
was Dorothy Mason, of Lebanon. Ct., a sister of Jeremiah Mason, who 
was the father of the eminent lawyer who bore the same name. Charles 
Marsh was born in Lebanon, Ct.. July 10. 1765; removed with his 
father to Vermont in 1773 ; was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1786 ; 
was appointed by Washington United States District Attorney in 1797 ; 
was a Trustee of "Dartmouth College for forty years, from 1809 to 1849 ; 
a member of Congress 1815-1617, and died in Woodstock. Vt., Jan. 11, 
1649, at the age of 83. 



NOTE II. 



John Adams. LL.D., was the Principal of the Academy. Among 
the schoolmates of Mr. Marsh were William Adams, D.D., LL.D., Francis 
Cabot Lowell, for whom the eitv of Lowell was named, Josiah Quincy, Jr. , 
President I mrd Woods, D.D.. LL.D., E. M. P. Wells, D.D., Joseph 

Muenscher, D.D.. Levi Lincoln, and the two famous merchants. Hubert 

Hooper and Benjamin T. Reed. 



NOTE III. 
Mr. Marsh continued his preliminary study of the law hi "the office of 
his father, till the September term of the County Court in 1825. when 
lie was admitted to the liar, after passing an examination before a special 
committee appointed for the purpose, consisting of Jacob Collamer, 
George E. Wales and Norman Williams, Esquires. Soon after, he re- 
moved to Burlington and there entered upon the practice of his profession 
in company with Mr. Bailey, under the firm of Bailey and Marsh."— 
I'ermont Standard, July .'.\ 1SS2. 



NOTE IV. 
For information concerning Mr. Marsh s life in Constantinople. I am 
much indebted to President Cyrus Hamlin, of Middlebury. Vt., for many 



/f 



II 

years a missionary in Turkey, and to Hon. Henry A. Homes, American 
charge d'affaires during Mr. Marsh's absence from his post on his visit 
to Egypt and Palestine. Mr. Homes writes : "The duties of the Amer- 
ican Minister in Turkey are peculiar. He has authority accorded to him 
under the treaties to protect the interests of all Americans in all judicial 
affairs, by an officer of the Legation. American merchants or citizens 
are continually appealing to the Minister for his interference, in cases 
such as in most civilized countries would be referred at once to the 
courts. It requires extensive information in the Minister, and a judgment 
ripened by large experience, to direct his course wisely in many of these 
cases. In matters of religious liberty pertaining to the native Christians ' 
the appeal was generally to the British Ambassador, yet the rights and 
privileges of American Missionaries were so frequently mixed up with 
those of the native Christians, that the missionaries frequently addressed 
their memorials to Mr. Marsh, and they never found him backward to 
do all in his power with the functionaries of the Sublime Porte." 




NOTE V. 

"There was no American living who had anything approaching 
the personal prestige with the Italian government that Mr. Marsh en- 
joyed, and that, not for the sake of his government, but for his own." 
— The Nation, Dee. SI, 1S82. 



NOTE IV. 

The correspondence which accompanied the purchase and gift of 
this admirable collection deserves to be widely known. As a part of the 
history of the complete transaction, I am glad to be permitted to reprint it 
here : 




Woodstock, Vermont, March 15th. 1883. 

President M. II. Buckham, University of Vermont, Burlington. Ver- 
mont : 

My Dear Sir: You are aware that in September last I bought the 
library of the late George P. Marsh for the University of Vermont. I have 
delayed making a formal communication on the subject until the books 
arrived from Italy. They were kept there a while for reference in the revi- 
sion of Mr. Marsh's works, and have only just come to hand. I now for- 
ward them, with a catalogue, made under Mr. Marsh's own supervision. 
With the books already in Burlington, the whole number will be about 
twelve thousand, constituting a library rich in rare and choice works, and 



in 

I ask you to accept it as a gift to the University 

■men it is remembered that Mr. Marsh was a son of Vermont and 
" "7 "I ™* SCh0lar ■• *« from early manhood until he went abroad 
n d plomatxc hfe his home was in Burlington, near the Univers ty 

h ;;:.n ; t h rr:r? its Trustees ' and ° ften -«- ^ 

hat ; a Library he had bul]t up whh sq mu<;h care ^^ 

iversny, and would have himse.f p.aced it there if his Ion, pub, c 

n kept tarn comparatively poor, every one will see that this dis- 

position of this un.que and precious collection is the fittest thing possible 

STK a lT eI£ °; being permitted to make the ■»■ ~ ot; 

man had so good a nght to the privilege as one who is not only a Ver- 

r^o d"'^^ ° f thB UnlVer8ity ' bUt Wh ° haS had " is *™ ^e 

m Woodstock for many years on the old Marsh homestead, fragrant with 

= v memo,,,,, where George P. Harsh was born and lived until man- 

And now the need of the University for a fire-proof library building, 
which has been pressing for so many years, can no longer be put aside I 
-Hid be almost crimina, to allow the very valuable library tL enHched 
bj he Marsh collection to run any further risk of destruction or damage 
A substan ,al and graceful building, a fit home for such a library, shoufd 

purpose, and as tlme 8hou]d be Iogt) x g . ve seyen 

Ama Mater, the Alma Mater of two of my brothers, and in the hope that 
o hers of her children wi,, remember her with g ifts a ' nd hclp J r ^ 
h« ' old renown, and ever be worthy of her name. 



Sincerely vours. 



FREDERICK BILLIXGS. 



University of Vermont. Burlington, March IS. 1883. 
Hon. Frederick Billings, 

Mt Dear Sik: Your letter of the loth is at hand, conveying to the 
t mversity the Marsh library and indicating your intention to give seventy 
Ave thousand dollars for the erection of a library building. It is my pur- 
pose to call a special meeting of the Trustees of the University to take 
such actio,, as this gift seems to call for, and I shall therefore defer an 
official reply to your communication until they shall have taken action 
"Pon il I, would, I am sure, be the wish of every member of the corpor- 
ate that they should have the opportunity of giving expression to their 
sensetf the importance of an act which both in its immediate and remote 







IV 

my own admiral and latitude h '" " ^ inad «^tely- 

in ff that you would provide I ^ *"" ^ reaS ° n f ° r ho P- 

I knew that you would"! Lnc 7' 7" i" ° "'"** taWh «' but ^ 
have far exceeded CmttaZ. «*" "* "* '° d ° " aU ' y ° U 

vision. I look upon ^rent re "f Lh PM " ^ Ube »»* ° f ^ P-- 
oHt, as so generous, so wi fwor St ™ SUb8tanCe 8nd «"■ -anner 
hardly eonceive of anything, er Tn ^ ° f ^^ that * ca * 

the channel through wMch « Z ,'T * benefaction - To be only 

years of waiting LV^^Z^ ^-ity repays me for many" 
library, in some departs, in t, wofld and 7' 7 ^ ^^S^ 
the best library building in the I 7« ' VPntUre ,0 h °P e - one of 

scholars to us and e iveC M ' **" draW the attent ion of 

^^u.^r'u^r^'r r help us in man - v **•• 

dowment which his Alma M 2 H * ° f ^ ma S nifi <*nt en- 

than ever upon his ^ J" ""^ Wffl VaIue hi ^lf more 
hope that others wil, be ^at V SSL.^ ^ ^ *" ^ 
the.r means, to build up an institution which deXtST T'f* '° 
semces that any of us are able to bestow """ g ' ftS and 

I am, dear Sir, 

Very cordially yours. 

M. H. I3LCKHAM. 




m 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

III III If 



I II II ill Hill ill II 
011 695 472 2 



